’Tis the season to be hairy
Movember has soared in popularity because it allows men to perform traditional masculinity within contemporary culture while representing themselves as altruistic.
The Movember Foundation began in Australia in 2003 when two friends—Travis Garone and Luke Slattery—thought they’d revive a fashion trend over a beer. By adding in the awareness aspect of men’s health and charitable giving grew the event from 30 participants and zero funds raised in 2003 to 480 participants and $50,468 CAD raised by 2004. By 2015, the Movember Foundation had grown to include 21 countries, 5,232,625 participants since 2003, and raised a total of $759 million CAD.
With each passing week, the peach-fuzz beginnings of November become a variety of moustaches: walruses, handlebars, Chevrons, and more. Men commit an inordinate amount of time to growing their moustaches and documenting their facial hair adventures on social media sites. It seems like an awful lot of effort compared to the relatively quick, easy, and private option of donating money to a men’s health charity.
While some men do just that, there is a benefit of showing off one’s manly facial locks instead of donating in secret. A man’s ability to grow a glorious amount of facial hair traditionally represented virility and strength. Such a correlation is obviously flawed but contemporary society has replaced one flawed set of meanings with another. Namely, that facial hair is “gross,” “unprofessional,” “unfashionable,” “a lame hipster trend,” “pervy-looking,” or—if the man growing it is a person of colour—“terrorist-y” or “thuggish.” Suffice it to say, the moustache is still viewed negatively in our society—unless it’s November.
Movember replaces the negative meanings of moustaches with positive ones.Suddenly, a moustache is viewed as “charitable,” “altruistic,” “caring,” “sensitive,” or—at the very least, “okay, because it’s for a good cause.” In fact, Movember has become so popular that sometimes it’s not clear what that good cause is, exactly.
While many men are raising money for the Movember Foundation and just can’t keep track of which of the 1,200 men’s health projects they are fundraising for, some men aren’t raising funds at all. Those men usually explain that they are simply raising awareness for men’s health.
When presented with the “raising awareness” answer, the logical next step is to ask: “How are you raising awareness for men’s health?” Yes, Movember is iconic in our culture, but growing a moustache alone isn’t enough to raise awareness.
Growing a moustache does not encourage the older men in our lives to go get screened for prostate cancer. Growing a moustache does not persuade our male friends to get screened for STIs. But, growing a moustache may help men with their mental health and wellness. Movember gives men the safe space of a month to express an aspect of traditional masculinity without the swift pain of harsh judgement.
The often unvoiced negative meanings of moustaches are joined too often by thinly-veiled jokes. Jokes about moustaches range from making fun of someone for not being able to grow facial hair, to “porn-staches,” and—perhaps most horrifying—to looking like a paedo (as in phile). It doesn’t promote a positive body image for young men.
Furthermore, the hairy expectations of how “proper” men should look certainly don’t help with the hair-free expectations faced by women. The patriarchy hurts us all. So, maybe it’s time we just do whatever we want with our own hair and not pass judgement on anyone else’s. I mean, it’s literally just hair; you don’t see us all being super critical about each other’s fingernails.
If this November—or any other month of the year—you see someone with facial hair you don’t like or that makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, then ask yourself why hair on someone’s face is having an impact on you. Really think about what you’ve seen culturally or been told by your social group that has informed your feelings. And then remember that you have no right to tell someone how they should look or to comment on how they choose to express themselves.
The underlying meanings of Movember go deeper than a charitable fashion statement; and it can only help to go follicle-deep when it comes to learning how to overcome our prejudices.
Photo courtesy of Freestocks.org via (CC.0).